Sasquatch has clearly only been raising Lil K for the occasional delicious snack. Well, that’s one mystery solved.
It’s been such a long time since we saw Sasquatch last, I just felt like I had to get him into a strip. Did you know he only appeared in six strips last year? That’s just sad. I’ll have to make more efforts to get our furry father figure into the comic more often in 2012. This will be the year of the Sasquatch for Happle Tea.
This comic doesn’t really have any big message or wild mythology behind it so let’s take some time to talk about the site instead. If you’re not into that sort of thing, don’t worry about it, you can stop reading now.
First off, I’d like to say thanks to everyone sharing links on Reddit, Stumbleupon, and the like. Because of you folks, I’ve had to do very little in terms of advertising and have been able to focus on just doing comics, for which I thank you all very much. It is absolutely marvelous. There has been a very steady upward trend in traffic since day one, which seems to suggest that people generally enjoy the strip. This is good, because I intend to keep doing it anyway.
The problem, right now, is that I’m between jobs and more or less done with school, which means student loan payments. The site, largely due to my own inability to create and market merchandise, doesn’t make any money despite decent traffic and yet I pay every month for some significant server hosting to keep it running and to make sure it doesn’t keep crashing (as has happened in the past on our less awesome server). So what does all this mean?
Unfortunately, it means I need your help. I can’t afford to keep paying server costs every month so I’m asking you, if you enjoy the comic and you can throw a few dollars to see the strip continue, please do so. Happle Tea will either be free or it will not exist, but when I don’t make enough from ads and donations to cover the server costs, it leans toward disappearing and that kind of sucks.
I have some plans in the works to help alleviate this sort of thing, but it takes time and it takes money. I’ll be posting some shirt designs up soon and hopefully that will help, and I’m currently working on putting together the first Happle Tea book which, as I’ve stated on Twitter, will probably be funded by kickstarter.
Anyway, if you want to help, you can donate here or you can use the tip jar on the side of the comic. If you don’t have the means or just don’t feel like it, don’t worry. This isn’t a guilt trip thing, it’s just asking for a little support.
Any extra money donated will go toward covering future server costs or developing cool shirts and whatnot.
Thanks!
-Scott
EDIT: There is a response to some of your comments about merch down below! Thanks everyone that has donated so far, I really appreciate it! <3
I think the Paypal link in the blog post is broken (but the “tip jar” next to the strip, that one works).
Well at least with high traffic you have options for trying to make money for these things. Happle Tea is thankfully faring better than plenty of other comics.
I could host your site for free I think, send me an email
(I prefer talking over IRC or something but I don’t feel comfortable posting too much information in public comments)
I love the site, especially the tid-bits of myth that I’ve never heard expressed in humorous form. That said, I went to the Happle Store link and it only displayed one shirt for sale. Is that it or did I just not know how to see the whole thing? Certainly I was looking for some cool pics of the characters in different scenarios and possibly some quotable shirts or stickers a’la Dr. McNinja or even Axe Cop. Anyway, please keep up the great work!
Oh, and more necromancers are cool too…
Lil K got a new giant zipper hoodie!
And there you go, another idea for the store. A hoodie with a picture of a giant zipper pull on it.
If I could get a replica K hoodie (with a -real- giant zipper on it) I would totally buy it.
This is probably my most favourite webcomic out there, and I will throw all kinds of money at you to acquire a Happle Tea book.
Greets,
I am newcomer on here, having found the strip only a week or so ago.
For making some money from the work you’ve done already, I note that your store does not have any book compilations. For no money, and without any loss of copyright, you can self publish each compilation through Lulu, keep 80% of all NET profits, and just link off your site to the Lulu page. And of it does not work, you just cancel, no commitments, no fees, no sharing of copyright.
Otherwise, if you wanted to front the expense for self publishing, you could try a Kickstarter. Order of the Stick made BIG news when they raised $35,000 for bringing back their past compilations that were no longer in print. (and in webshow circles, Cinemassacre raised $225,000 for a AVGN movie using a service like Kickstarter that specializes in movies and such.
Hope these help. Oh… and I am not sure of the details, but another webcomic, Rusty & Co talks about a service that picks webcomic characters and such to make into stuffed animals…. Many many of your characters would be ideal! I’d be psyched to get a Lil K plushie. LOL
Personally, I’d buy a dire owl plushie in an instant. Or old man ‘Squatch.
I tried to donate but your tip jar wouldn’t take my visa gift card
Oh well I only had a dollar left on it but a dollar saved is a dollar ‘earned’
I’ll try again later though oh and you should add more stuff to your store, a K hoodie would be awesome by the way
First off, thanks to everyone donating! It’s super great to see everyone supporting the site
Second, let’s talk merchandise:
I know everyone wants cool stuff in the store but it costs a lot of money and a good amount of time to come up with ideas that everyone will like. It’s really hard to gauge just how many people would buy any one product, it’s really easy to lose what little money I’ve had on a failed design. Books, especially, are incredibly pricey for independent artists, that’s why I’m going to be using kickstarter to assure that the books will sell and to help them get made in the first place.
My goal for this weekend is to make a nice wallpaper exclusive to everyone that’s helped to donate. I’ll email it out to your paypal addresses. I’m also going to start offering limited edition seasonal prints that should be fairly cheap. Probably 5-8 dollars. These will rotate out at the end of their season and new ones will be made so if you buy one, you’ll have a unique piece of art that other people won’t have.
Finally, shirts shirts shirts. Hoodies are crazy expensive to purchase and print, they’re also seasonal and irrelevant for the warmer regions. Eventually I would like to offer some, but now isn’t the time. T-shirts, on the other hand, are okay. The one design that’s up there is going to get phased out completely in the next couple of weeks. I’d like to create a design that is more broadly appealing, if I could, and also something more graphic and funny. Hopefully I can meet all those criteria and still see some interest from all of you. Obviously I’ll post it here and on twitter to gauge your interest.
Thanks to everyone that has donated so far, I really appreciate it! You’re really helping alleviate some of the stress of running the site and I will send you a cool wallpaper next week as thanks
-Scott
I can’t wait for when the book is finally made. I keep on buying books from various webcomics, but it saddens me taht I can’t get one for happletea which I actually have set as my homepage. It’s kind of an odd thought buying books for things that you can read for free though. My friends think I’m stupid for it at least XD
Oh also as far as shirts go I know a site that might interest you. society6.com
I will absolutely help fund your book on kickstarter if you decide to do that! I’m donating to the tip jar too, because I love Happle Tea so much!
Please don’t stress out too much over it! Good luck – and I look forward to whatever you decide to do in the future! ^_^
Pretty sure I’ve got a way to make hoodies with giant zippers. We will talk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQCP85FngzE
My wife was all like, “If they have a book of this I would like it.” And I was all like, “Nah, there’s no book,” and then she was all like “If they have a book of this, I would like it.” So you have to get the book out to make my wife happy.
True story.
‘Oh…Oh God!’ is the last thing I want to hear a nurse say to me.
Just bought a shirt, and rounded the price up to $20.
I really like this comic. Roughly one of four strips makes me laugh out loud, which is a fantastic rate. I just adore the way its quirky characters explore the forgotten tributaries of our culture. There are really no other comics quite like it, and I hope my tiny donation keeps you making it, because I think you’ve got a lot of good work ahead of you.
I would like to see more shirts, but since I just bought one, I’m unlikely to buy another for a while.
I love your comic, and the link to abominable creature comic. Well let me say I spent a few hours catching up to the present page, and I am thankful you had it. It is captivating. Although, it can learn a thing or two from you about updateing more frequently :p. Love your work and thanks for the great find!